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SHAKESPEARE'S 

INSOMNIA 

3UHJ tl)t Causes Cfretreof 



BY 



FRANKLIN H. HEAD 



r 

\ 






CHICAGO 

S. A. MAXWELL AND COMPANY 





SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA 

&nJ tje Causes Hereof 



SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA 

And the Caufes Thereof 



BY 



s 



FRANKLIN H. HEAD 




OFC 

:opyr; 
OCT 13 1886* 



DO O 

a«;hinC" 



Cljtcago 

S. A. MAXWELL AND COMPANY 
1886 






Copyright, 1886, 
By Franklin H. Head. 



BJnfbersttg ^ma: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 



THE CAUSES THEREOF. 



>>3<c 



TNSOMNIA, the lack of "tired Nature's sweet 
restorer," is rapidly becoming the chronic 
terror of all men of active life who have passed 
the age of thirty-five or forty years. In early 
life, while yet he "wears the rose of youth 
upon him," man rarely, except in sickness, 
knows the want of sound, undreaming sleep. 
But as early manhood is left behind and the 
cares and perplexities of life weigh upon him, 



6 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

making far more needful than ever the rest 
which comes only through unbroken sleep, this 
remedial agent cannot longer be wooed and 
won. Youth would "fain encounter darkness 
as a bride and hug it in his arms." To those 
of riper years the "blanket of the dark" often 
ushers in a season of terrors, — a time of fitful 
snatches of broken sleep and of tormenting 
dreams; of long stretches of wakefulness; of 
hours when all things perplexing and trouble- 
some in one's affairs march before him in sombre 
procession : in endless disorder, in labyrinths of 
confusion, in countless new phases of disagree- 
ableness ; and at length the morning summons 
him to labor, far more racked and weary than 
when he sought repose. 

It has been of late years much the fashion 
in the literature of this subject to attribute 
sleeplessness to the rapid growth of facilities 
for activities of every kind. The practical anni- 
hilation of time and space by our telegraphs 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 7 

and railroads, the compressing thereby of the 
labors of months into hours or even minutes, 
the terrific competition in all kinds of business 
thereby made possible and inevitable, the intense 
mental activity engendered in the mad race for 
fame or wealth, where the nervous and mental 
force of man is measured against steam and 
lightning, — these are usually credited with 
having developed what is considered a modern 
and even an almost distinctively American 
disease. 

As the maxim, "There is nothing new under 
the sun," is of general application, it may be of 
interest to investigate if an exception occurs in 
the case of sleeplessness ; if it be true that 
among our ancestors, before the days of work- 
ing steam and electricity, the glorious sleep of 
youth was prolonged through all one's three or 
four score years. 

Medical books and literature throw no light 
upon this subject three hundred years ago. 



8 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

We must therefore turn to Shakespeare — 
human nature's universal solvent — for light on 
this as we would on any other question of his 
time. Was he troubled with insomnia, then, is 
the first problem to be solved. 

Dr. Holmes, — great Homer sometimes nods, 
— in his singularly cheap and job-lot work 
called a "Life of Emerson," has finely worked 
out the theory that no man writes other than his 
own experience : that consciously or otherwise 
an author describes himself in the characters 
he draws ; that when he loves the character he 
delineates, it is in some measure his own, or 
at least one of which he feels its tendencies 
and possibilities belong to himself. Emerson, 
too, says of Shakespeare, that all his poetry 
was first experience. 

'When we seek to analyze what we mean 
by the term Shakespeare, to endeavor to define 
wherein he was distinct from all others and 
easily pre-eminent, to know why to us he ever 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 9 

grows wiser as we grow wise, we find that his 
especial characteristic was an unequalled power 
of observation and an ability accurately to 
chronicle his impressions. He was the only 
man ever born who lived and wrote absolutely 
without bias or prejudice. Emerson says of 
him that "he reported all things with impar- 
tiality ; that he tells the great greatly, the 
small subordinately, — he is strong as Nature 
is strong, who lifts the land into mountain 
slopes without effort, and by the same rule as 
she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well 
to do the one as the other." Says he, further: 
■ • Give a man of talents a story to tell, and his 
partiality will presently appear : he has certain 
opinions which he disposes other things to 
bring into prominence ; he crams this part and 
starves the other part, consulting not the fitness 
of the thing but his fitness and strength." But 
Shakespeare has no peculiarity ; all is duly 
given. 



10 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

Thus it is that his dramas are the book of 
human life. He was an accurate observer of 
Nature : he notes the markings of the violet 
and the daisy ; the haunts of the honeysuckle, 
the mistletoe, and the woodbine. He marks 
the fealty of the marigold to its god the sun, 
and even touches the freaks of fashion, con- 
demning in some woman of his time an usage, 
long obsolete, in accordance with which she 
adorned her head with "the golden tresses of 
the dead." But it was as an observer and a 
delineator of man in all his moods that he was 
the bright, consummate flower of humanity. 
His experiences were wide and varied. He 
had absorbed into himself and made his own 
the pith and wisdom of his day. As the fittest 
survives, each age embodies in itself all worthy 
of preservation in the ages gone before. In 
Shakespeare's pages we find a reflection, perfect 
and absolute, of the age of Elizabeth, and 
therefore of all not transient in the foregone 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 11 

times, — of all which is fixed and permanent in 
our own. He a held the mirror up to Nature." 
So "his eternal summer shall not fade," 
because 

4 'He sang of the earth as it will be 
When the years have passed away." 

If, therefore, insomnia had prevailed in or before 
his time, in his pages shall we find it duly set 
forth. If he had suffered, if the "fringed cur- 
tains of his eyes were all the night undrawn," 
we shall find his dreary experiences — his hours 
of pathetic misery, his nights of desolation — 
voiced by the tongues of his men and women. 

Shakespeare speaks often of the time in life 
when men have left behind them the dreamless 
sleep of youth. Friar Laurence says : — 

" Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, 
And where care lodges, sleep can never lie ; 
But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain 
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth 



12 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

Shakespeare describes, too, with lifelike fidelity, 
the causes of insomnia, which are not weariness 
or physical pain, but undue mental anxiety. He 
constantly contrasts the troubled sleep of those 
burdened with anxieties and cares, with the 
happy lot of the laborer whose physical weari- 
ness insures him a tranquil night's repose. 
Henry VI. says: — 

"And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, 
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, 
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, 
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, 
Are far beyond a prince's delicates." 

And Henry V. says : — 

"'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, 
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, 
The farced title running 'fore the king, 
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 
That beats upon the high shore of this world, — 
No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony, 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 13 

Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, 
Who, with a body filled and vacant mind, 
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful 

bread ; 
Never sees horrid night, that child of hell, 
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set, 
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night 
Sleeps in Elysium. . . . 
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, 
Winding up days with toil and nights with 

sleep, 
Hath the forehand and vantage of a king." 

Prince Henry says, in "Henry IV.": — 

"O polished perturbation! Golden care! 
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide 
To many a watchful night, sleep with it now ! 
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet 
As he whose brow with homely biggin bound 
Snores out the watch of night." 

In this same play, too, is found the familiar 
and marvellous soliloquy of Henry IV. : — 



14 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

"How many thousand of my poorest subjects 
Are at this hour asleep ! O Sleep, O gentle Sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my ej-elids down 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy 

slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody? 
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch 
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell? 
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge, 
And in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deafening clamor in the slipper} 7 shrouds, 
That with the hurly, death itself awakes? 
Canst thou, O partial Sleep, give tlry repose 
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 15 

And in the calmest and most stillest night, 
With all appliances and means to boot, 
Den} r it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down ! 
Uneas}^ lies the head that wears a crown." 

Caesar, whom Shakespeare characterizes as "the 
foremost man of all this world/' says : — 

' ' Let me have men about me that are fat ; 
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights." 

And again, it is not an "old man broken with 
the storms of state" whom he describes when 
he says : — 

1 ' Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies 
Which bus}^ care draws in the brains of men ; 
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound." 

The poet also in various passages expresses 
his emphatic belief as to what is the brightest 
blessing or the deadliest calamity which can be 
laid upon our frail humanity. Rarely is a bless- 
ing invoked which does not include the wish 



16 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

for tranquil sleep ; and this, too, as the best 
and greatest boon of all. His gracious bene- 
diction may compass honors and wealth and 
happiness and fame, — that one's "name may 
dwell forever in the mouths of men ; " but 

" The earth hath bubbles as the water hath, 
And these are of them," 

as compared with the royal benison, " Sleep 
give thee all his rest." 

The spectres of the princes and Queen Anne, 
in "Richard III.," invoking every good upon 
Richmond, say: — 

" Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace and wake in joy." 

And again : — 

" Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep." 

Romeo's dearest wish to Juliet is, — 

" Sleep dwell upon thine eyes ; peace in thy breast." 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 17 

The crowning promise of Lady Mortimer, in 
"Henry IV.," is that 

1 "She will sing the song that pleaseth thee, 
And on thy eyelids crown the god of sleep." 

Titania promises her fantastic lover, — 

"I '11 give thee fairies to attend on thee, 
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, 
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost 
sleep." 

Titus, welcoming again to Rome the victorious 
legions, says of the heroes who have fallen : 

" There greet in silence, as the dead are wont, 
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars," 

promising them that in the land of the blest 

" are no storms, 
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep." 

Constantly also in anathemas throughout the 

plays are invoked, as the deadliest of curses, 

broken rest and its usual accompaniment of 

2 



18 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

troublous dreams. Thus note the climax in 
Queen Margaret's curse upon the traitorous 
Gloster : — 

' ' If Heaven have any grievous plague in store 
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, 
Oh, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe, 
And then hurl down their indignation 
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace ! 
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul ! 
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st, 
And take deep traitors for thy clearest friends ! 
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, 
Unless it be while some tormenting dream 
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils ! " 

The witch, in "Macbeth," cataloguing the ca- 
lamities in store for the ambitious Thane, says : 

" Sleep shall neither night nor day 
Hang upon his pent-house lid ; 
He shall live a man forbid." 

It is curious also to remark, in the various 
lists of griefs which make life a burden and a 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 19 

sorrow, how often the climax of these woes is 
the lack of sleep, or the troubled dreams bearing 
their train of "gorgons, hydras, and chimeras 
dire," which come with broken rest. Lady 
Percy says to Hotspur: — 

" Wiry hast thou lost the fresh blood in th\ T cheeks, 
And given my treasures and my rights of thee 
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy? 
Tell me, sweet lord, what is 't that takes from 

thee 
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?" 

Macbeth says: — 

"But let the frame of things disjoint, both the 

worlds suffer, 
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep 
In the affliction of these terrible dreams 
That shake us nightly ; better be with the 

dead." 

In "Othello" is a striking picture of the sudden 
change, in the direction we are considering, 
which comes over a tranquil mind from the 



20 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

commission of a great crime. Iago says to 
Othello, after he has wrought "the deed with- 
out a name " : — 

" Not poppy nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou own'dst yesterday." 

The greatest punishment which comes to 
Macbeth after the murder of Duncan is lack 
of sleep. Nowhere in the language, in the 
same space, can be found so many pictures of 
the blessedness of repose as in the familiar 
lines : — 

" Methought I heard a voice cry, < Sleep no more ! 
Macbeth does murder sleep/ the innocent sleep ; 
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of 

care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second 

course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast." 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 21 

And the principal reason which deters Hamlet 
from suicide is the fear that even if he does 
sleep well " after life's fitful fever is over," still, 
that sleep may be full of troubled dreams. 

"To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's 

the rub ; 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may 

come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause." 

Richard III. says, when the catalogue of his 
crimes is full, and when he "sees as in a map 
the end of all " : — 

" The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom, 
And Anne, my queen, hath bid the world good 
night." 

In addition to the fuller phrases wherein are 
shown the blessedness of sleep, or the remedi- 
less nature of its loss, many brief sentences 
occur scattered throughout the plays, and 



22 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

emphasizing the same great lesson. For 
instance : — 

"Now o'er one half the world 
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
The curtained sleep." 

" With Him above 
To ratify our work, we may again 
Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights." 

"You lack the season of all natures, sleep." 

"My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep." 

1 ' For never j*et one hour in his bed 
Have I enjoyed the golden dew of sleep." 

"For some must watch and some must sleep, 
So runs the world awa}\" 

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank." 

"The best of rest is sleep." 

"Our little lives are rounded with a sleep." 

The various passages cited above prove and 
illustrate that no author has written so feel- 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 23 

ingly, so appreciatingly, as Shakespeare on the 
subject of sleep and its loss. 

The diligent commentators on his works have 
investigated laboriously the sources from which 
he drew his plots and many of the very lines 
of his poems. He was a great borrower; ab- 
sorbing, digesting, and making his own much 
of the material of his predecessors. But it is 
a noteworthy fact, that none of the exquisite 
lines in praise of sleep — that gift which the 
Psalmist says the Lord giveth to his beloved — 
can be traced to other source than the master. 
These are jewels of his own; transcripts from 
his own mournful experience. In middle life 
he remembered hopelessly the tranquil sleep of 
his lost youth, as 

"He that is stricken blind cannot forget 
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost." 

He had suffered from insomnia, and he writes 
of this, not "as imagination bodies forth the 



24 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA. 

forms of things unknown," but as one who, in 
words burning with indestructible life, lays open 
to us the sombre record of what was experience 
before it was song ; who makes us the sharers 
of his griefs ; who would awaken in the simi- 
larly afflicted of all time that compassionate 
sympathy which goes out to those whose 
burdens are almost greater than they can 
bear. 







^mwmmzM^amm 



II. 

/ ~T V EIE meagre information we have as to the 
life and habits of Shakespeare would seem 
to make it an almost hopeless task now to dis- 
cover the causes of his insomnia. He wrote 
a marvellous body of literature, and it might 
be thought this labor itself would suffice as 
an explanation : that the furnace heat in which 
the conceptions of Hamlet and Macbeth and 
Lear were wrought in the crucible of his 
brain would be fatal to repose. But his con- 
temporaries speak of him as an easy and rapid 
writer ; one whose imagination is only paralleled 
by the ease, the force and beauty of the phrase 
in which it is embodied. We are told, too, by 
Dr. H. A. Johnson, an eminent medical author- 



26 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

ity, in the second volume of his treatise on the 
pathology of the optic nerve, that it is not work, 
even heavy and continuous, but worry over this 
work, which drives away repose and shortens life. 
I had observed, in collating the many passages 
in Shakespeare concerning sleep, that the greater 
number, and those bearing evidence of deepest 
earnestness, occurred in six plays : " Richard 
III.," "Macbeth," "1 Henry IV.," "Hamlet," 
" 2 Henry IV.," and " Henry V." The chronology 
of Shakespeare's plays seems almost hopeless, 
scarcely any two writers agreeing as to the 
order of the plays or the years in which they 
were written. Several of the most critical au- 
thorities, however, — Dyce, White, Furnival, and 
Halliwell-Phillipps, — are agreed that two of the 
plays above named were written in 1593, three 
in 1602, and one in 1609. This would seem 
to indicate that during these three years unu- 
sual perplexities or anxieties had surrounded 
our author; and on noting this, it occurred to 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 27 

me that on these points the series of papers 
recently discovered and called the Southampton 
manuscripts, which are not yet published, might 
give light. I accordingly addressed a letter to 
the Director of the British Museum, where the 
manuscripts are placed for safe keeping, and re- 
ceived the following reply : — 

British Museum, Office of Chief Curator, 
Department of Manuscripts, London, Feb. 14, 1886. 

Sir, — I am directed by the Curator to ac- 
knowledge the receipt of your valued favor of 
February 1, transmitting for preservation and 
reference in the library of this institution — 

1. The manuscript of the farewell address of 
Dr. Charles Gilman Smith, on his retirement to 
private life from the presidency of the Chicago 
Literary Club ; 

2. The manuscript of the inaugural address of 
his successor in the office, — which is a public 
trust, — James S. Norton, Esq.; 



28 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

3. An affidavit of Dr. W. F. Poole, that both 
manuscripts are originals, and in the handwriting 
of their eminent authors. 

The Curator further instructs me to convey to 
you the thanks of the Board of Governors for 
these highly important papers, and to state to 
you that they may be found on file in sub- 
compartment No. 113,280 of Contemporary 
Documents. 

I am further instructed by the Curator to in- 
form you that compliance with your request 
that this institution reciprocate your kindness 
by loaning to you all papers from the recently 
discovered Southampton Shakespeare Collection, 
bearing date in the years 1593, 1602, and 1609, 
is contrary to the regulations of this institution. 
If you cannot visit London to examine these 
interesting manuscripts, copies will be made 
and transmitted you for three halfpence per 
folio, payment by our rules invariably in advance. 
I note that you are evidently in error upon one 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 29 

point. The collection contains no letters or man- 
uscripts of Shakespeare. It is composed princi- 
pally of letters written to Shakespeare by va- 
rious people, and which, after his death, in 
some way came into the possession of the Earl 
of Southampton. His death, so soon after that 
of Shakespeare, doubtless caused these letters to 
be lost sight of, and they were but last year 
discovered in the donjon of the castle. I have 
examined the letters for the years you name, 
and find that copies of the same can be made 
for £3 3s., exclusive of postage. 
Very respectfully yours, 

John Barnacle, 

10*A Ass't Sub- Secretary. 

The money having been forwarded, I received 
in due time the copies. At the first date, 1593, 
Shakespeare was a young dramatist and actor 
struggling for recognition, poor and almost un- 
known; in 1602 he had won an assured posi- 



30 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

tion among his fellows, and, with the thrift 
which characterized him, had secured an interest 
in the Globe Theatre, where his plays were per- 
formed; in 1609 he was in the fulness of his 
contemporary fame, had bought valuable prop- 
erty in Stratford, and was contemplating retire- 
ment to his country home. 

The following are the letters from the South- 
ampton collection which serve to throw light 
upon the insomnia of Shakespeare. They are 
given in their chronological order, and verbatim, 
but not literatim, the orthography having been 
modernized. The first of the letters, dated in 
1593, is from a firm of lawyers, Messrs. Shal- 
low & Slender, and is as follows: — 

Inner Temple, London, Feb. 15, 1593. 
To William Shakespeare : 

Mr. Moses Solomons, an honored client of 
our firm, has placed with us, that payment may 
be straightway enforced, a bill drawn by John 



ii 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 31 

Heminge, for £10, due in two months from the 
date thereof, and the payment of which was 
•assured by you in writing. This bill has been 
for some days overdue, and Mr. Solomons is 
constrained to call upon you for payment at 
once. Your prompt attention to this will save 
the costs and annoyance of an arrest. 

The second letter is from the same parties, 
and bears date four days later than the first. 

Inner Temple, Feb. 19, 1593. 
Mr. William Shakespeare : 

Recurring to certain statements made by 
yourself at our chambers yesterday, we have 
considered the same, and have likewise the 
opinion thereon of our client, Mr. Solomons. 
As we do now recall them, you nominated three 
principal grounds why you should not be pressed 
to pay the bill drawn by Mr. Heminge. First, 
that you received no value therefor, having put 



32 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

your name to the bill upon the assurance that it 
was a matter of form, and to oblige a friend. 

To this we rejoin, that by the law of estoppel 
you are precluded to deny the consideration 
after the bill hath passed into the holding of a 
discounter unnotified of the facts. 

Second, That, as our client paid but £1 for 
the bill, he should not exact £10 thereon. To 
the which we reply, that, so a valuable consid- 
eration was passed for the bill, the law looketh 
not to its exact amount. It is also asserted by 
our client that, beyond actual coin given for the 
bill, he did further release to John Heminge 
certain tinsel crowns, swords, and apparel ap- 
purtenant to the representation of royalty, which 
had before then — to wit, two weeks before — 
been pledged to him for the sum of 8 shillings, 
borrowed by the said Heminge. 

Third, That it was impossible for you to pay 
the bill, you having no money, and receiving no 
greater income than 22 shillings per week, all 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 33 

of which was necessary to the maintenance of 
yourself and family. We regret again to call 
to your notice the Statute of 16 Eliz., entitled, 
"Concerning the Imprisonment of Insolvent 
Debtors," which we trust you will not oblige 
us to invoke in aid of our suffering client's 
rights. To be lenient and merciful is his in- 
clination, and we are happy to communicate 
to you this most favorable tender for an acquit- 
tance of his claim. You shall render to us 
an order on the Steward of the Globe Theatre 
for 20 shillings per week of your stipend therein. 
This will leave to you yet 2 shillings per week, 
which, with prudence, will yield to you the com- 
forts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In 
ten weeks the face of the bill will be thus 
repaid. For his forbearance in the matter of 
time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced 
him, he requires that you shall pay him the 
further sum of £2 as usury, and likewise that 
you do liquidate and save him harmless from 



34 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

the charges of us, his solicitors, which charges, 
from the number of grave and complicated 
questions which have become a part of this case 
and demanded solution, we are unable to make 
less than £4. We should say guineas, but your 
evident distress hath moved us to gentleness 
and mercy. These added sums are to be like- 
wise embraced in the Steward's order, and paid 
at the same rate as the substance of the bill, 
and should you embrace this compassionate ten- 
der, in the brief period of sixteen weeks you 
will be at the end of this indebtedness. 



The next letter is dated the following month, 
and is from Henry Howard, an apparent pawn- 
broker. 

Queer Stkeet, London, 10 March, 1593. 
To William Shakespeare, Actor: 

These presents are to warn you that the time 
has six days since passed in which you were to 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 35 

repay me 8 shillings, and thereby redeem the 
property in pledge to me; namely, one Henry 
VIII. shirt of mail and visor, and Portia's law- 
book, and the green bag therefor. Be warned 
that unless the 8 shillings and the usance thereof 
be forthcoming, the town-crier shall notify the 
sale of the sundry articles named. 

The next letter, and the last in this period 
of the poet's career (1693), is from Mordecai 
Shylock. 

Fleet Street, near the Sign of the 
Hog in Armor, Nov. 22, 1593. 

To William Shakespeare: 

I have been active in the way you some days 
since besought me ; namely, the procuring for 
you of a loan of £5, that you might retire a 
bill upon which you were a guarantor. As I 
then told you, I have no money myself, being 
very poor ; but I have a friend who has money 
with which I can persuade him to relieve your 



36 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

wants. Had I myself the money, I should 
gladly meet your needs at a moderate usance, 
not more than twenty-five in the hundred; but 
my friend is a hard man, who exacts large 
returns for his means, and will be very urgent 
that repayment be made on the day named in 
the bill. He hath empowered me to take your 
bill at two months, — for him, mind you, — for 
£10, the payment to be assured, as you wished, 
by the pledge of your two new plays in manu- 
script, — "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Ro- 
meo and Juliet," — for which bill he will at my 
strong instance, and because you are a friend to 
me, give £5. My charge for services in this 
behalf, which hath consumed much time, will 
be £1, which I shall straightway pay out in the 
purchase of a new gown, much needed by my 
little daughter Jessica, who loves you and re- 
calls often the pleasant tales you do repeat for 
her diversion. 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 37 

The letters in the second period (1602) are 
nine years later than those just read. The first 
is from the same Mordecai Shylock, who, with 
the poet, seems to have prospered in worldly 
affairs, as his letters are dated in a more repu- 
table portion of the city. 

Threadneedle Street, London, April 17, 1602. 
To William Shakespeare: 

In January last past you purchased of Rich- 
ard Burbage four shares of the stock of the 
Globe Theatre for £100, and inasmuch as you 
had not available the whole means to pay there- 
for, borrowed from me the £60 wanting, paying 
yourself £40 of such purchase price, and giving 
me in pledge for my £60 such four shares of 
stock. Owing to special attractions at Black- 
friars' Theatre, the stock of the Globe hath 
greatly declined in value, and I fear these four 
shares may not longer be salable at the price 
of even £60, and I therefore must importune 



38 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

that you forthwith do make a payment of £20 
on your said bill, or the four shares of stock 
will be sold at public vendue. 

The next letter is from the same writer, and 
is dated nine days later. 

Threadneedle Street, April 26, 1602. 
To William Shakespeare: 

I acknowledge to have received from you by 
the hand of Henry Condell £5, and two of your 
own shares in the stock of the Globe Theatre 
in further pledge of your bill of £60, as was 
engaged between us yesterday. It pains me to 
make known to you that, owing to the great 
demands recently made upon the goldsmiths by 
her sacred Majesty, money hath become very 
dear; and as it was not my own lent you, I 
have been obliged to pay above the usance ex- 
pected a further premium of seventeen in the 
hundred, which I pray you to presently repay 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 39 

me. I am told that shares in the Globe can 
now be bought at £15 ; and inasmuch as yours 
were bought at £25, should you acquire other 
shares at £15, it would serve to equate your 
havings. 

The next letter, from the same broker, is 
written but a few days later. 

Threadneedle Street, May 12, 1602. 
To "William Shakespeare: 

Acting as requested by you, I did one week 
ago buy for you three shares in the Globe The- 
atre for £15 each, using in such purchase the 
£15 given me by you, and £30, not of mine 
own, but which was furnished me by a gold- 
smith of repute. Yesterday I learned that 
shares were offered at £10 each, perchance from 
I the efforts of forestallers, as also from the 
preaching of a dissenter, who fulminates that 
the end of the world is but three weeks away, 



40 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

which hath induced great seriousness among 
the people. Unless you can pay me, therefore, 
as much as £40, on the morrow I shall be con- 
strained to offer such shares to the highest 
bidder at the meeting of the guild. 

The next letter is also from the same Mor- 
decai Shylock, and is dated four days later. 

Threadneedle Street, May 16, 1602. 
To William Shakespeare: 

My earnest epistle to thee of four days since 
having elicited no response, I did on the fol- 
lowing day offer at the meeting of the Brokers' 
Guild some of the shares of the stock in the 
Globe pledged to me, and three shares were 
bidden at £9 each by my brother, Nehemiah 
Shylock. As I offered next all the rest, one 
Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton, did 
ask to whom the shares belonged, and when he 
was enlightened, did straightway take all the 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 41 

shares and pay me the whole balance owing, 
and called me divers opprobrious names. I an- 
swered not his railing with railing, for sufferance 
is the badge of all our tribe, but such slander 
is illy bestowed on one who has been your friend 
for long, and who was but striving to avert his 
own destruction. 

The next letter in order is from one William 
Kempe, who would seem to be the business 
manager of the Globe Theatre, or the person 
having in charge the unskilled labor connected 
with the playhouse. 

Globe Playhouse, Employment Bureau, 
May 25, 1602. 

William Shakespeare: 

In much tribulation do I write thee as to the 
contention which hath arisen among our stock 
actors and supes of the Globe. Nicholas Bot- 
tom, whom you brought from the Parish work- 
house in Stratford, is in ill humor with thee in 



42 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

especial. He says when he played with you 
in Ben Jonson's comedy, "Every Man in his 
Humor/' he was by far the better actor and 
did receive the plaudits of all; despite which 
he now receives but 6 shillings each week, 
while you are become a man of great wealth, 
having gotten, as he verily believes, as much as 
£100. Vainly did I oppose to him that the 
reason you had money when he had none was 
in verity that you had labored when he was 
drunken, and that this was to his profit, since, 
had not you and the other holders of shares in 
the Globe saved somewhat of money, unthrifty 
groundlings of his ilk would starve, as there 
would be none to hire them at wages ; but he 
avers that he is ground in the dust by the greed 
of capital, and hath so much prated of this that 
he hath much following, and accounteth himself 
a martyr. I said to him that at your especial 
order he was paid 6 shillings per week, which 
was double his worth, and that he should go 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 43 

elsewhere if he was not content, as I could daily 
get a better man for half his wages ; but he 
will not go hence, nor will he perform, and has 
persuaded others to join with him, his very 
worthlessness having made him their leader, and 
they threaten, unless they may receive additional 
4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for 
sack, they will have no plays performed, nor 
will they allow others to be hired in their stead. 
They do further demand that you shall write 
shorter plays ; that you shall write no tragedies 
requiring them to labor more than three hours 
in the rendition ; that you shall cut out as much 
as twelve pages each in "Richard III." and 
"Othello," and fifteen pages from "Hamlet," that 
they may not labor to weariness, and may have 
more hours to recreation and improvement at 
the alehouse. I know not what to do. If I 
yield them their demands, nothing will be left 
for the owners of shares in the Globe; and if 
I do not, I fear mobs and riots. Fain would 



44 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

I receive thy counsel, which shall have good 
heed. 

The next letter is the last in the period under 
review, and bears date four days later than the 
one just quoted from William Kempe. 

At the Elephant & Magpie Inn, 
London, May 29, 1602. 

To William Shakespeare: 

This is written to thee by John Lely, a clerk, 
in behalf of Nicholas Bottom, who useth not 
the pen, and who says to me to tell William 
Shakespeare, fie upon him that he did order 
the aforesaid Bottom to be locked out of the 
Globe Playhouse. Hath he forgotten the first 
play he, William Shakespeare, did ever write, 
to wit, " Pyramus and Thisbe," when a boy at 
Stratford, which was played by himself and 
Nicholas Bottom and Peter Quince and others, 
in a barn, for the delectation of the townsmen ? 
And is not this same play a part of his " Mid- 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 45 

summer Night's Dream," which beggarly play 
he did sell for £10, and hath not Nicholas Bot- 
tom first and always been an ass therein? 
Doth he refuse to render to Nicholas Bottom 
10 shillings per week when he can get £10 or 
even £11 for a beggarly play, which is nought 
unless it be acted ? Many a time hath he paid 
me from a sponging house ; often hath he given 
me groats for sack, and for purges when sack 
hath undone me ; and did I ever insult him to 
offer to repay him a penny? Say to him, re- 
membereth he not when the horses ridden by 
Duncan and Macbeth upon the stage did break 
through the* floor, who, affrighted, did run howl- 
ing away, whereby Burbage was aroused and 
did pick him, William Shakespeare, from among 
the horses' feet and save his life? And now, 
sweet Will, fie upon thee that thou didst frown 
upon thy townsman. Delay not to send me 
sundry shillings for the publican, who believes 
you will discharge, as often before, my reckoning. 



46 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

This, and much more of like tenor, saith Nich- 
olas Bottom to William Shakespeare by your 

worship's humble servant, 

John Lely. 

The letters in the third period bear date in 
1609, seven years later than those last quoted. 
The first is from Rev. Walter Blaise, who 
appears to be the clergyman at Stratford-on- 
Avon. 

Stratford, Feb. 23, 1609. 
To William Shakespeare: 

John Naps, of Greece, who did recently return 
to his home here from London, safely has deliv- 
ered to Anne, your wife, the package entrusted 
to him for carriage. As your wife hath not the 
gift of writing, she does desire that I convey to 
you her thanks for the sundry contents of the 
hamper. She hath also confided to me as her 
spiritual adviser that she did diligently ply John 
Naps with questions as to his visit to you in 
London, and that said John Naps, under her 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 47 

interrogatories, has revealed to her much that 
doth make her sick at heart and weary ot 
life. 

Item. He doth report that you do pass 
among men as a bachelor, and, with sundry 
players and men of that ilk, do frequent a house 
of entertainment kept by one Doll Tearsheet, 
and do kiss the barmaid and call her your sweet- 
heart. 

Item. He doth also report that you did give 
to the daughter of the publican at whose house 
you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and did 
also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eye- 
brows and her lips, and did otherwise wickedly 
disport with the said damsel. 

Item. He doth further report of you that 
you did visit, with one Ben Jonson, on the 
Sabbath-day, a place of disrepute, where were 
cock-fights and the baiting of a bear, and that 
with you were two brazen women, falsely called 
by you the wife and sister of Ben Jonson. 



48 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

These things do overmuch grieve Anne, who 
hath been to you a loyal wife and a true, and 
she desires that you do forthwith renounce your 
evil ways and return to the new house at 
Stratford, and in ashes and sackcloth repent 
of your wanderings from the straight and 
narrow way. 

Thus far have I spoken to you as the mouth- 
piece and vicegerent of Anne, your wife, who 
is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason of 
your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my 
flock, I should be unworthy my high and sacred 
calling did I not lift up also my rebuking voice 
as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you 
to beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, 
which unceasingly do war upon the human soul. 
Thinkest thou to touch pitch and remain un- 
dented ? 

The next letter is from the firm of Coke & 
Dogberry, lawyers in London. 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 49 



Inner Temple, March 8, 1609. 
To William Shakespeare: 

We have been retained by Mistress Anne Page 
as her solicitors to bring against you an action, 
for that you have not fulfilled and in sooth can- 
not fulfil with her a contract of marriage, and 
to seek against you under the laws of this realm 
heavy damages and an imprisonment of the 
body, in that you have in unholy ways trifled 
with her affections, contrary to the statute in 
such cases provided. She especially avers that 
you did, two days before Michaelmas, swear to 
her on a parcel gilt goblet that you did love 
her alone, and did then give to her a bracelet 
of price. But yesterday, as she was bargaining 
with a yeoman named Christopher Sly, from 
Stratford, for the purchase of a spotted pig of 
his own fattening, the said Sly did reveal to her 
that you were his friend, and that you had wife 
and children in your native town where he 
4 



50 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

dwelt. We beg you to straightway name to us 
your solicitors, that we may confer with them and 
attend to the issuance of the writs. 



I have aimed to select from the letters sent 
me only those bearing on some trouble tending 
to cause sleeplessness on the part of the poet, 
but make an exception in case of a letter of 
Sir Walter Raleigh, next in chronological 
order, which refers to matters of general 
interest. 

The Mermaid, March 20, 1609. 
To William Shakespeare: 

Full well do I know, my dearest Will, that 
often hast thou wondered of the fate of thy £50, 
which, with a hundred times as much of mine 
own, was adventured to found an empire in 
America. Great were our hopes, both of glory 
and of gold, in the kingdom of Powhatan. But 
it grieves me much to say that all hath resulted 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 51 

in infelicity, misfortune, and an unhappy end. 
Our ships were wrecked, or captured by the 
knavish Spaniards. Our brave sailors are per- 
ished. As I was blameworthy for thy risk, I 
send by the messenger your £50, which you shall 
not lose by my over-hopeful vision. For its 
usance I send a package of a new herb from 
the Chesapeake, called by the natives tobacco. 
Make it not into tea, as did one of my kinsmen, 
but kindle and smoke it in the little tube the 
messenger will bestow. Be not deterred if thy 
gorge at first rises against it, for, when thou art 
wonted, it is a balm for all sorrows and griefs, 
and as a dream of Paradise. And now, my 
sweet Will, whom my soul loveth, why comest 
thou not as of yore to the " Mermaid," that I 
may have speech with thee? Thou knowest 
that from my youth up I have adventured all 
for the welfare and glory of our Queen Elizabeth. 
On sea and on land and in many climes have 
I fought the accursed Spaniards, and am honored 



52 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

by our sovereign and among men, and have won 
both gold and fame ; but all this would I give, 
and more, for a tithe of the honor which in the 
coming time shall assuredly be thine. Thy 
kingdom is of the imagination, and therefore 
hath no limit or end. Thy wise sayings are 
ever with me. Thou art the "immediate jewel 
of my soul," as thyself hast written. When I 
am bruised with adversity, I remember thy say- 
ing, "He fighteth as one weary of his life," and 
my courage comes; and even when I consider 
the solemn end of all, and that I do march the 
way to dusty death, still, in thy words, do I 
hope for grace " by Christ's dear blood, shed for 
our grievous sins." 

The next, and the last letter in the collection 
which seems to have a bearing upon the sleep- 
lessness of Shakespeare, is also from Rev. Walter 
Blaise. 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 53 



Stratford, April 3, 1609. 
To William Shakespeare: 

Sir Thomas Lucy, who is in her Majesty's 
commission as a Justice of the Peace in this 
bailiwick, yesterday did inform me that he had 
been questioned from London if you were a 
married man, and if yes, when and to whom 
you were wedded. As the parish records are in 
my keeping, I could but bestow the information 
sought, although with great sinking of heart, as 
a well-wisher to you, who, though given over- 
much to worldly frivolities and revels, yet are 
a worthy citizen, and a charitable and a just. 
Greatly did I fear this knowledge was sought 
to thy injury. Hast thou led a blameless life, 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee ; 
but the wicked stand on slippery ways. Anne, 
thy wife, to whom I did unbosom my fears, is 
in much tribulation lest thou art unfaithful to 
thy marriage vows, and again beseeches me to 



54 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

urge thee to come forth from wicked Babylon 
and dwell in thy pleasant home in Stratford. 
Thou art become a man of substance, and hast 
moneys at usury. I have read of thy verses 
and plays, which, albeit somewhat given to 
lewdness, and addressed to gain the favor of the 
baser sort, yet reveal thee to be a man of under- 
standing. I cannot, as it is rumored do some 
of thy town associates, award thee the title of 
poet, which title is reserved for the shining ones ; 
but thou hast parts. There are many parish 
clerks, and even some curates in this realm, 
scarcely more liberally endowed in mind than 
thou. But greatly do I fear that thou art little 
better than one of the wicked. How hast thou 
put to use this talent entrusted thee by the 
Master of the vineyard? In the maintenance 
of the things which profit not ; in seeking the 
applause of the unworthy; in the writing of 
vain plays, which, if of the follies of youth, may 
be forgiven and remembered not against thee, 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 55 

provided in riper years you put behind you 
these frivolities, and atone for the mischief thou 
hast wrought by rendering acceptable service to 
the Master ; by coming to the help of the Lord 
against the mighty. Gladly would I take thy 
training in charge, and guide thy tottering feet 
along the flowery paths of Homiletics. Who 
knoweth into what vessels the All-seeing One 
may elect to pour his spirit? Perchance in 
mercy I may be spared to behold thee a faithful 
though humble preacher of the Word. Anne, 
thy wife, often hath likened me to a great light 
upon a high hill-top, shining in the darkness 
far away. I would not magnify my powers, but 
not to all is it given to be mighty captains 
of a host. Yet, according to thy gifts might 
thy work be, and a little candle shining in a 
darkened valley hath its place. 

In the light of these letters, some passages 
in "Richard III." and the " Comedy of Errors," 



56 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, 

written in the same year (1609), have an added 
significance. In " Richard III.," Gloster says to 
Anne: — 

' ; Your beaut}" was the cause of that effect : 
Your beauty, that did haunt me in nry sleep, 
To undertake the death of all the world, 
So I might live one hour in thy sweet bosom." 

In the " Comedy of Errors," the Abbess says to 
Adriana : — 

" The venom clamors of a jealous woman 
Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
It seems his sleep was hindered by thy railing. 

In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest 
To be disturbed, would mad or man or beast. 
The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits 
Have scared thy husband from the use of wits." 

Note, too, the kindred thought : — 

" Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes." 



AND THE CAUSES THEREOF. 57 

And again this passage, called forth possibly by 
the letters of the Rev. Walter Blaise : — 

" Slander, 
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose 

tongue 
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile ; whose breath 
Hides on the posting winds and doth belie 
All corners of the world." 

As also this : — 

"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, 
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, 
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, 
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
And recks not his own rede." 

From these several letters sufficiently appear 
the causes for the insomnia of Shakespeare, 
which are some of the same causes resulting in 
its prevalence to-day. They illustrate anew that 
history repeats itself forever; that humanity 
is always the same; that like temptations and 
errors come to men with like results in all the 



a 



58 SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA. 

centuries; that the sleeplessness of Shakespeare 
came, because, merely as a matter of form, he 
had indorsed for a friend, — because he had 
bought more stocks than he could pay for, and 
when his margins were absorbed, came forth 
a shorn and shivering lamb, — because of the 
turbulence of labor, — because, alas ! he too had 
been dazzled and bewildered by 

"The light that lies 
In woman's eyes. 7 ' 

Marvellous as were the endowments of the 
master, yet was he human and as one of us. 

Chicago, 1886. 




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